One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Space Stars (1981): Series Primer

A galaxy of heroes
team together in an interstellar battle against evil. Blast off on adventures
as big as the cosmos itself!”

Get
ready for “60 laser blasting minutes of action…”
in Space
Stars (1981), a Hanna-Barbera animated Saturday morning series that
lasted just one season, and eleven episodes.

Space
Stars aired on
NBC from September 1981 through November 1981, and had two clear influences.

The
first is obviously Star Wars (1977). All the segments in the series are set in
outer space or in alien worlds. And the series’ opening title imitates the
opening crawl style of Star Wars, only with drawn character outlines as well as
words.

The
second inspiration is The All-New Super Friends Hour
(1977-1978) on ABC, which featured popular DC Superheroes working together and
separately, and interspersed short educational segments (about safety and magic
tricks, for example) with adventures featuring a multitude characters from the
Justice League at the Hall of Justice. It was an omnibus series, and so is this one.

Space
Stars followed
in this pattern with crossovers, but also short “black-out” segments include “Space
Magic,” “Space Mystery,” and “Space Fact” and “Space Code.”

The
stars collected for Space Stars include 1960s hold-overs Space Ghost, and The
Herculoids, was well as the Teen Force, and Astro and the Space Mutts. Astro
is apparently the family dog from the Jetsons, now working for the space police.

In
the Space Ghost segments, Space Ghost -- a Batman corollary for the far future
and outer space -- teams with his friends Jan, Jace and Blip the space monkey
to defeat villains such as the tyrant Uglor, Toymaker, and star beasts galore.
Settings include their home-base -- “The Ghost Planet” -- and also Space Ghost’s
ship: the phantom cruiser. Space Ghost has power bands on his wrists that emit
beams of all types, and the sidekicks can deploy “inviso-power.’

In
the Herculoids installments, a human family consisting of Zandor, Tara and Doro
live on distant Quasar (rather than Amzot, as previously…) in the
wilderness. They have befriended several
amazing creatures including Zot (a dragon), Igoo (a rock simian), Tundro (a
rhino/triceratops combination), and the blobs Gloop and Gleep. These beings
defend the family against all brand of invaders both from Quasar (“The Snake
Riders”) and beyond. I’ve loved the
Herculoids in all their incarnations.

The
Teen Force segments involves a group of young heroes who dwell beyond Black
Hole X and voyage to our universe.

This
group rides space sleds/rockets through space. The heroes are a psychic named
Elektra, Moleculad -- who can alter and re-arrange his physical matter at will --
and Kid Comet. They are assisted by
diminutive sidekicks called Astromites, and regularly battle Uglor , tyrant of
the planet Uris.

The
next “space stars” are the show’s (cringe-worthy) comic-relief: talking space
dogs Astro, Cosmo and Dipper, who work with a hapless human policeman, Space Ace,
in the Astro and the Space Mutts segments.
This segment has not held up well, and was frequently not syndicated
with the rest of the series during cable reruns.

The
final segment of each hour of Space Stars is called the “Space
Stars Finale” and always involves a team up of different heroes in cross-over
tales. The Teen Force and Space Ghost join forces in “Polaris,” for instance,
while the Herculoids and Space Ghost do so in “Worlds in Collision.”

It
is basically a science free zone (despite its so-called “Space Facts”) with its
space age superheroes (and dogs…) flying around in space sans space suits or
other protections.

Similarly,
every creature and place is ostensibly made “futuristic” sounding by adding the
words “star” or “space” as a descriptor.
Welcome to a world of star flies, star beasts, etc. The stories tend not to be deep, either,
focusing on action over character or even solid sci-fi concepts.

About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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